From Still To Motion

From what I have read online and seen in a few tutorials, this book is an excellent resource for all photographers looking to make the move to video with their new DSLRs.

All killer and no filler. Written by the experts in easy to understand language, From Still to Motion breaks down each step to get from beginner level clips to full length professional looking video production. It also includes a DVD with further instructions and tutorials to round out the most important lessons.

Get your copy today and start the journey!

Tips for Shooting Video With Your New DSLR

Here is a great beginners list taken from the Gadgets Blog over at the NYTimes. The author got to spend a day working with Canon expert Bruce Dorn on a commercial for the Canon T2i and came up with some very helpful observations:

• It will take some practice, but you must learn to focus manually. For Mr. Dorn, autofocus is just not acceptable.

• If your camera allows, use manual exposure settings when shooting video because exposures will change as you pan the camera.

• A good shutter speed for video is 1/50^th second. That’s the “classic sweet spot,” Mr. Dorn said.

• Set the ISO to 200.

• He recommends an aperture setting of F/5.6, which he says is used by many cinematographers.

• If your camera accommodates 24 fps video capture, use it.

• Avoid auto white balance at all costs. Instead, pick one white balance mode and stick with it throughout the video.

• Use the camera’s neutral image setting; it will give you the most latitude for postproduction work.

• Focus where your subject will be, not where it is.

• Always shoot a minimum of 15 seconds per take.

• Never shoot vertical, unless you want to mount your HDTV sideways.

• Invest in a good high-performance memory card. Slower cards will conk out when their buffer becomes overloaded.

• If you’re serious about video, invest in an add-on microphone, like the $200 Sennheiser MKE 400 shotgun microphone.

• Use a neutral density filter, like an N.3 or N.9; stick with one brand if you buy several filters.

Save the Date – Stock Footage Webinar

Photo © Larry Ditto / DanitaDelimont.com

Although shooting video with DSLR cameras may be intimidating and confusing at first we feel that with the right guidance and information everyone can learn to embrace it and produce quality footage. As we have been moving into the footage market over the past few months we have come across many experts, useful tools, software and hardware that have proven to be very valuable. We are encouraging all of our still shooters to get into this new market and we now can show you how to do so with just a short learning curve and a modest investment in gear.

We are pleased to announce that DanitaDelimont.com will be presenting a FREE 5 week online footage course for our contracted photographers starting April 5th.  Each Monday classes will be streamed live online from the Creative Techs classroom at Art Wolfe’s studio in Seattle and will also be available later for downloading from the Creative Techs website.

The program is titled “Producing Great Stock Footage with Your DSLR”. Each week we will tackle different topics and will have various experts and product representatives leading the discussions. We will be updating you as the schedule is finalized, but be sure to mark Monday, April 5th at 11:00 AM Pacific time and the following four Mondays on your calendar.  There are also seats available in the studio audience so if you are in Seattle, please attend the live session!

We look forward to helping you get acquainted with shooting and processing footage.  Let us help you to add a great new revenue stream to your business with much less effort than you ever imagined!

PACA Update – Part 2

Footage Shooting Tips

While watching the stock footage shoot at the PACA International Meeting Sunday session, we got a chance to watch and talk with the participants for 3 hours as they went about creating several different stock footage clips.  Here is what I gleaned from the assembled practitioners.

The Red ONE is an extremely good camera for the price. They love it. However, it is not easily portable in the sense of travel photography.  The tripod is enormous and the ancillary gear such as hard discs, field monitors, etc. requires having a multi-person crew.  In addition to the 2 models there were 6 others involved in the shoot.

Focus is extremely important. The depth of field with a 135mm lens at about 15 feet was between 3 and 4 INCHES!  A turn of the model’s head and his beard went out of focus.  The 5D Mark all which was used to get the “B roll” shots had a much larger DOF and a different look because of the sharpness of the background.  This is both a limitation and a benefit of the DSLR hybrid that can be used for good effect.  Focusing the Mark all was very easy compared to the Red ONE.  The resulting “boca”, or area that is out of focus, is better with the DSLR.

Canon 5d Mark II histogram

Expose to the far right of the histogram whenever possible. The result looks overexposed on the viewfinder and on a monitor but can be easily corrected in post.  This technique saves the details that might otherwise be lost in the shadows.

Other tips included:

Think like you are shooting a silent movie (which you are!).  Tell the story without the sound.

Shoot multiple compositions whenever possible. Do a close up, a wide angle, leave room for copy in one version, etc.

Pans and zooms can be added in post if the original composition is created with this in mind. Shoot wider than you want for the final product and do the pan or zoom in post similar to the way you would do a crop in Photoshop or turn a still into a moving image.

Avoid logos and trademarks. These can be removed in post but it requires a lot of work.  There is a list of places and things that are problematical on the PACA website.

Get Down! The DSLR can get closer to the ground than a regular video camera and can also be more easily elevated with poles or booms to get unique perspectives.  Be creative, get unique shots.

Ready, Steady, Go!

Another way to get a steady shot and the highest quality footage in the field is to use a Stedi-cam. These use a counter balance to keep your camera steady and almost hover, allowing you to move freely and quickly without the camera shaking and causing the viewer motion sickness.

Here are a few steadicams that are on the market today:

Cavision RS1580D

Glidecam 2000 Pro

ABC Handyman 100

SteadiCam Merlin